Brigitte Kingsley

Early life

Brigitte Kingsley was born in Sudbury, Ontario, and grew up in the nearby town of Hanmer. She moved to Whitby, Ontario at the age of 10. Her father, Denis, worked in the lumber insurance industry for over 20 years and her mother, Diane was a teacher in the French Catholic school board until they both retired early and opened two Topper's Pizza franchises in Whitby and Oshawa, Ontario. She has an older sister Natalie. She began acting at the age of 14 in television commercials including Oxy, Foot Locker, McDonald's, Head & Shoulders and Radio Shack. She went to the French Catholic School in Whitby, Ontario Saint-Charles Garnier until grade 12 and then did her OAC at Anderson Collegiate also in Whitby. She studied theatre and psychology at York University in Toronto and graduated with Honours and a BFA degree in Theatre Studies.

Career

Brigitte Kingsley was dubbed the "hostess with the mostess" when she hosted the television series Game Nation for 4 seasons under the name Suki Diefenbaker. At the time she was still in high school. Kingsley went on to expand her hosting career on Much Music's "Screwed Over".

In 2002, Brigitte Kingsley launched a production company Defiant Empire Corporation with business partner Andrew Cymek. She produced a series of short films, corporate videos and commercials before producing her first feature film Dark Rising in 2006 starring wrestling superstar Jay "Christian" Reso. The low-budget indie feature was released through Universal Vivendi in 2007 and nominated for 6 Canadian Comedy Awards in 2008 for Best Writing, Directing, Male Performance and Best Female Performance, which Brigitte earned for her role as the lead character "Summer Vale". It was later released in the US through E1 (Koch) and subsequently expanded into a sequel and television series.

In January 2008, Kingsley became president of Black Walk, a production company that is best known for their comedic features including the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival Favorite and Independent Spirit Award Winner Phil the Alien and the 2004 comedy Ham & Cheese. Black Walk also holds the record for winning the most Much Music Video Awards to date. In 2010 Brigitte completed her feature Medium Raw: Night of the Wolf, an action-thriller starring John Rhys-Davies (Lord of the Rings), William B. Davis (The X-Files), Mercedes McNab (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Jay Reso (WWE) which will be released through Anchor Bay. She is also expanding the Dark Rising brand with a television series The Savage Tales of Summer Vale, and the Dark Rising sequel, Summer Strikes Back!

In 2012, Kingsley shot the fourth Dark Rising project, Warrior of Worlds alongside other Canadian and US talent including Colin Mochrie, Peter Outerbridge, Brian Krause, Jeremy London and Scott Thompson . In September 2012, she left Black Walk to start a new production company Good Soldier Films with husband and creator of the Dark Rising franchise Andrew Cymek.

Good Soldier Films is currently in production on Night Cries in Mattawa, Ontario and in pre-production on the Country Musical Country Crush, also slated to film in Northern Ontario.

Personal life

Kingsley married director Andrew Cymek in 2005, whom she met in 1999 while in school shooting the short film he wrote and starred in "Night Cries". Kingsley and Cymek have 3 cats named Billy, Peanut and Todd. From 1998 to 2002 Kinglsey was involved in a relationship with Joe Heslip from the Canadian boy band Voices in Public.